Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow Update: What’s New

Now that Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow has been available for some time, many users are wondering what’s new. Here we’ll detail all of the changes. Most Android smartphone owners have finally received 6.0 Marshmallow, and are now looking ahead to Android Nougat. Here’s what’s new.

In 2015 Google announced and then released the update to Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, but didn’t share too many details about it. Simply stating that it would improve performance, stability, and added December security patches for improved security. However, we know the update added over 200 new emoji, changed the do-not-disturb controls and more.

Whether this is your first Android smartphone or you’re just looking to learn more, this is a good place to start. We go over absolutely everything you need to know about Android 6.0 Marshmallow. From what’s new, to what changed and features owners will enjoy.

Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow is not a very big update. There are a few new features, some small changes, and some bugs that have been fixed. However, for the most part it’s just a small bug-fixing maintenance update for Marshmallow. It was first released for the Nexus 5, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6, Nexus 6P, Nexus 7 (2013), Nexus 9 and the Nexus Player.

Below we’ll be detailing everything that we know about so far in terms of what’s new. All said and done, the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow was an excellent release that all owners have enjoyed.

What’s New in Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow

The update to Android 6.0.1 is a small 0.0.1 increase to the version of Android, which means there isn’t too much going on here. That said, there are still changes or fixes users will want to know about, new features, and addition things that will be helpful for all Android smartphone and tablet owners. Here is the full changelog, and below are more details in an easier to understand fashion. Lets get started.

New Emoji

The biggest thing being talked about are the new emoji in Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. Google’s VP of Android confirmed it back in November and again in early December, and now more than 200 new emoji are built right into stock Android. No more third party downloads, keyboards, add-ons or anything.

After Apple added around 150 in iOS 9.1 Google went ahead and took the extra step adding more than 200 to Android, giving users a vast selection to choose from. These are right in the stock Google Keyboard app. That said, it requires Android 6.0.1 and a system level update to get them. They are built into the font code.

Quick Launch Camera

A popular feature on almost all Android smartphones in 2015 was being able to quickly launch the camera. From double tapping home on the Galaxy S6, flicking a wrist with the Moto X, and other things.

The Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P both have a new feature where users can quickly double tap the power button, and instantly launch the Android camera. This works while the phone is off, even locked, or while in use. Launching the camera in under one second and being able to snap photos.

Now this is built right into stock Android and works for all devices on Google’s Android 6.0.1 release. That includes the older Nexus 5, Nexus 6, and tablets like the Nexus 9 and Pixel C. Now with Android, snapping photos is easier and faster than ever.

Do Not Disturb & Volume Controls

Google unified system and Bluetooth volume. Meaning now when you’re connected to a Bluetooth accessory like a speaker, wireless headphones, or a vehicle, users no longer have to turn up the volume on both devices. As in the phone, and your headphones. One volume slider or control works across both devices.

Then, with Android 5.0 Lollipop Google introduced a new “do not disturb” option to the volume controls. Allowing users to set parameters where no notifications can come through, at all. There was an option to select priority contacts that could still alert the user in this new silent mode, and even an option to set do not disturb “until the next alarm”. As in no sounds come from the device, until the next alarm. Because no one wants to be late for work after they set their phone to do not disturb and the alarm didn’t go off.

This was removed in Android 6.0, but returned in Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. There’s now a new option in the do not disturb volume controls to set it to turn off at a certain point, or at the next alarm.

Tablet UI

Another small change that doesn’t appear to be for all tablets, but some, can also be seen in the image above. The tablet UI was slightly tweaked in Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow to move the back, home, and recent apps buttons to the sides. Basically easier to use. Rather than in the middle where it’s hard to reach. This is on the Pixel C tablet made by Google, but wasn’t added to the Nexus 7 or Nexus 9. Maybe this is only for the Pixel C, or for bigger 10-inch tablets only. We’re not sure, but will be keeping an eye on this change for the future.

Failed MMS (Picture Message) Bug

In Android 6.0 Marshmallow a lot of users (mainly the older Nexus 5 and Nexus 6) were experiencing problems sending picture messages, or MMS. For whatever reason they’d fail, or received messages couldn’t be downloaded. Google fixed this in Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, although select few are still experiencing problems. Expect improvements in this front on Android 6.0.1 moving forward.

Lag in Copy & Paste Selection

Android 6.0 delivered a much needed change to how users select, copy, and even paste words or sentences in Android. Before it was a sliding bar that was clumsy and difficult. Now it jumps words by words while going forward, and by letter going backwards for precision.

However, once you double tap or long press to start doing a copy and paste, the floating toolbar above the words (to select copy, etc) lagged and often took over a second to popup. Leaving users waiting before they could copy some text. That small lag has been fixed. These are some of the performance improvements mentioned in the on-screen popup for the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow update on devices.

Security Patches

With the release of Android 6.0 Marshmallow Google made a promise to issue an update once a month, roughly ever 4-5 weeks, to all Nexus smartphones and tablets to improve security. This patches the latest exploits, fixes problems, and makes all devices more secure. Many manufacturers continue to do the same for their devices.

The update to Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow also has the latest December security patches in place, so users won’t have to wait and accept another small update later during the month.

Should You Update to Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow?

We’ve been getting a lot of questions about the update, but the quick answer is yes, yes you should accept the over the air update. It’s a small bug fixing, performance enhancing, security improving update. If you never accepted it, we’d still recommend doing so.

There are a few little bugs here and there we’ve been hearing about, but nothing that would make us recommend users stick to Android 6.0 and pass on the update. At this point all devices that can get an update should be on this latest version. Stay tuned for more details.

60 Comments

Antoniopreed

12/17/2015 at 7:54 am

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I stay on Android 5, until I no longer hear that new Android versions create new WiFi problems for Nexus 5 users. The Android version that I have has no WiFi issues, so I will not risk anything since Android 6 does not bring anything really essential. I am wondering however, how can I get rid of that annoying notification that Android 6.0.1 is available for download?

Contrary to those who like to whine, this is a significant update that changes your interaction completely from 5.x. The Galaxy S6, which has never given me any performance or battery issues, is now even smoother and the battery life has improved far more than I expected (actually worried about not being able to run it down below 50% in a day). 6.01 brings performance and visual enhancements to Touch Wiz, and improves working with Google Now for those who do. Don’t listen to those who preach the ‘perils of Android’ because those people do nothing but complain about their phones. They should honestly be supporting the trash coming out of Cupertino because their opinions are rarely even close to accurate. I have run every version of Android from Cupcake forward (no Honeycomb – didn’t have a tablet at that point), and I can assure you that I can quote the virtues of each major upgrade. Avoiding this one means you just like to complain or you are addicted to what’s wrong with your phone (or you aren’t tech savvy enough to use an OTA upgrade), so go ahead and take the improvements and STFU.

its not an improvement. You are trash talking above and i can see that you know nothing about androids and in general for smartphones. I use both my phones (Galaxy S5 and Galaxy S6) and i can tell you after the latest update to 6.0.1 the S6 is much more slower than it was. In three hours of use i saw my battery be drained in the same rate as before. So there isnt any improvement there. Also several features and settings have gone or disabled and some other have been moved in other sections as alternative options. What i find more stupid is that even the bubble effect or the quick camera settings have gone too. Know your phone and learn the facts before you talk or you should STFU. If you dont agree then its your problem and the only solution is to accept this crappy update and say thank you for the shittines as you did above.

sorry ahead of time, i would rather not get into a childish argument, that is basically based upon opinions anyways, however, i got just got the ota marshmallow 6.0.1 for my S6 Edge, and its encrypted, and it honestly, as far as my phone goes, has really improved. even with encryption enabled, it still has a good noticible improvement on battery, performance, and all around smoothness. just thout id throw this out there for anyone willing to take the time to read this. i am glad i did the update it was definitely worth it. also, my wifi and my data seems to have a bit of speed improvements as well, and it runs much smoother and is more responsive, hope this HELPS.

i want give biggest negative feedback fo new update.my samsung galaxy have too many problems grafic now is too slowly and my speed from procesors go down about 60percent.worst update ever.what stupid people make new update

Made it better in what way? Do you know anything about softwares and general for smartphones or you are just an other brainiac who is talking without knowing? Half of the features and settings are gone and the phone is much more slower than it used to be.

Moto X Play: Android 6 was a welcome update for me. Noticably better performance and much improved permission control of the external SD card. Only negative was a long wait time to reconnect to a known wifi (10 to 15 seconds).

6.0.1 is all it claims, and wifi reconnect is now about 3 seconds. A lot of things seem zippier, especially file access and directory scanning.

Easy for you to say but the majority of cell owners here are not experts like yourself. Quite judgemental comment when I believe there is a lot of valid and real issue being had by the majority of the people here. It would more productive to contribute some thing more positive since you have it all figured out than to make a comment “I am better than you all” Don’t you think?

**** WARNING CURRENTLY ELIMINATES audio playback in your car if running Android auto. Android auto will run but gps guidance or Spotify or any audio function will play from the phone speaker now. No settings to adjust. What a fail, praying it’s a quick fix on android auto’s end. FAIL***

Had to upgrade to 6.0.1 today just to get rid of the annoying message on my S6. Having to swipe to unlock the screen is frustrating given I’ve already enabled a pattern to unlock it. Has anyone found a way of removing the new pointless swipe? The new look with less contrast on the quick settings buttons also seems less easy to read. Not a fan yet but then I suppose I haven’t had time to discover any benefits yet. Everything suddenly seems slower too though which is a tad concerning.

I own an S6edge after the upgrade to 6.0.1 my laptop refuses to see the phone when connected. It does charge via the USB3 port though. Cannot download any photos anylonger. Oh well, have a nice Cannon to take photos with.

Upgraded to S6 on March 15th. NO ISSUES LOVE THE PHONE. Downloaded Marshmallow and now big problems cannot add contact short cut to main screen, when sending a text to multiple people by picking and choosing there is no check box you have to go back search tag add. It sux. My emails from work don’t show up for hours and NO notification sound for either work or personal email. Spent 3 1/2 hours with Verizon then Samsung results ZERO. Taking phone back to get a new one or get the update removed. Not a happy user. Had I known about these issues would have kept my S3 or I-Phone

I’ve been through enough OS changes to anticipate some small issues, lags and hiccups with a few applications. My LG G3 came with KitKat and transitioned to LolliPop without any major issues and any minor issues were corrected within a couple weeks. This “upgrade” to Marshmallow 6.0.0 was atrocious though. It was sluggish, saw increased battery drain and had a few bugs with a few apps and then after several weeks it started shutting itself off and rebooting. Sometimes it would restart after only 10 or so reboots (LG “life’s Good” screen and finally the Verizon “checkmark” screen) and then work for a few minutes to a few hours and start the loop all over again. Other times I couldn’t get it to stop or even shut it off without pulling the battery. I contacted Verizon and they said “oh well, contact LG or buy a new phone”. I called LG, they refused to provide a clean 6.0.0 (or even mention the 6.0.1 version) or to revert me to LolliPop and said to mail it back to them and they will let me know if they can reflash the OS or do anything (out of warranty). I called Google and they basically said sorry and to contact LG. This is horrible customer support by ALL! My phone went straight into a case and got a Zagg Glass screen protector, so I could wipe this thing off, put it back in the original box and it would look brand new. I shouldn’t have to fork out $700 for a new phone (grandfathered Verizon Unlimited Data Plan) because they can’t fix a boot-loop glitch on a decent phone. I was a about to send it back to LG today but decided to try probably the 30th+ factory reset and so far, knock on wood, it seems to be running properly and responding well. I haven’t reloaded any apps yet, but I will slowly reinstall and hope for the best before the 6.0.1 update becomes available. Shame on you Verizon, LG, Android, mobile industry in general. For the money we pay monthly, we ought to get better service. And I just heard Verizon is talking about charging even more money for those of us un the old unlimited data plan in the near future.

Had the same exact issue. I have a Galaxy Note 5 (purchased BRAND SPANKING NEW when they were released) and was totally in love with it until the new update. Phone would shut off and restart on its own, calls would drop, battery would drain, all the oldies but goodies. Then there was the connectivity issue: my Note 5 wouldn’t connect to my WiFi connection (even when sitting right next to the router), or when it did it would lose the connection for no reason after a minute or so (resulting in being billed for 1 extra gig of data in 1DAY! Why? Because when we took my son off of our plan they pulled the old “we’re no longer offering unlimited data and there are no more grandfathered accounts BS and we fell for it). Samsung would only reset it to factory settings. After talking to numerous Samsung techs and others I was told it was a Verizon issue. Verizon claims they never heard of any issues, that the update was “a Godsend”, and that it must be an application on the phone. Finally got Verizon to send me what was supposed to be a new phone, only to get a reconditioned phone that still had old apps and contact info on it. I’m not the only one who had this issue. My fiancé – Galaxy S6 Edge Plus, my son S6 Edge (who’s AF and stationed elsewhere with his own plan), and several other individuals that I’ve found such as yourself. Even then, it wasn’t until we threatened them with litigation that Verizon did anything about it. All I can say is good luck and that I feel your pain.

I also have the Note5 and scheduled the update for the middle of the night. Next move, it updated on is its own. I wanted to check with my husband before I actually upgraded to Marshmellow. Then my phone required me to sign in to the Gmail acct that I used when I purchase my phone service with Sprint. I could not remember. I dont use Google as my 1st choice of email providers. I tried and tried. Then I supposedly got locked out of my phone completely. Every 72-hrs if I try the wrong email or password,my 72-hr wait starts over. I have tried for 2 weeks to get into my phone. Called Sprint, called Google and Samsung. Suppose to get an email confirmation from Samsung about a list of paperwork that I had to provide to prove that it is my phone. Then I am suppose to be able to send it in and have it come back factory clean. I have been so mad in my life. I lost so much information and photos, calendar, meeting notes, keepasss, etc..I am so very angry over this incident and I do t think there will be an end soon.

Are you guys not surprised. Wake up everyone! No android update has ever improved battery life or the way the phone functioned for me. It has always been to the detriment of the phone. A few new Emoji’s to sucker you in, lip service about improved functionality and performance (where exactly?) and BANG! your phone is never the same. But look! Here is our brand new one ready for sale at only $700. I am never upgrading Android again on my S6 edge after the shemozzle that was Android upgrade on my S3 and Nexus 10 tablet.

Regrets, regrets. Wish I did not upgrade. The best feature ever, separate volume control for the bluetooth media connection (Car) is now gone. Why??? Now I almost blow up my car speakers when swiching back to Radio from Media. Why fix something that is working perfectly??

Only thing is that i couldnt give 2 shits about the duuuuuumb emojii. Not only are they stupid as hell looking, but seriously, has ANYONE EVER used more than 4-5 of them? Ppl usually only use a couple and stick with that. God im sick of these stupid things. Idk if they 1kb of memory, i want them gone. Waste of damn space

After reading half of the posts above, it appears that something else is going on here. Why does a supposedly tested update have such a diverse response of awesome to crappy. An update should not be an issue of ones technical expertise, This is for a commercial device that millions use. With that large a client base one could expect all levels of usage and should adapt there product to accommodate. Obviously, Marshmallow 106 does not. Forget these blogs. I saw little repetition in the problems described above. The problem can only be solved by the providers, Samsung, Google, Network provider. Maybe if enough people quit squabbling among themselves, and complain to the issuers of this dastardly update, we can get a reversion for those who want it, or a correction for the issues sighted( Mine stopped seeing my SD card). Or we can do as I suspect the issuers intended as is demonstrated by the add at the top of every page on this problem that I have seen, BUY A NEW ONE!!!

I cannot believe the negative comments here. People, did you ever consider that the apps that you have downloaded might be the cause of your issues. App updates ALWAYS OS updates. It takes a while for the app authors to modify their apps tho accommodate OS updates. Neither your phone carrier, manufacturer nor the Android gurus are responsible for 3rd party apps.

Strip your device of apps you don’t need or no longer use and check with the authors of the ones you use for updates.

This, unfortunately, is a downside of open source software – not all of it is good. If you don’t like it, then get an iPhone with their closed source and all the restrictions that come with them.

I have the new Note 7, supported by Marshmallow 6.0.1, it looks cool and all but there is a thing that’s so frustrating. The micro SD card issue, it doesn’t allow customization for a guy who purchased a phone that’s supposedly customize-able, and we can’t use SD card for Whatsapp media storage nor the following.

1- Can’t format it as Internal Storage 2- Can’t set default media download on Whatsapp to it. 3- Can’t download apps on it from Google Play or Samsung Apps.

It’s like having a very big yard but can’t build anything on it nor use it. 125 Micro SD Samsung. Pretty sad, if you guys know the solution WITHOUT ROOT, please share the knowledge.

I updated from 5.0 and was disappointed to find that widgets Briefing, Story Album, S Travel were no longer available. Briefing was particularly good as it read out the news and any appointments you had. Other than that 6.0 works well for me. Have enabled Power Saving Mode and my battery has charge from 8am to midnight and still has around 35% when I switch it off. I put it on my wireless charger at 6am and it is good to go for the rest of the day. And the good thing cant really see any difference in the operation of my phone, so happy days.

On my Samsung Galaxy S7, the Samsung Keyboard in e-mail now has a bug in it immediately following the Spring software update 3 days ago. When you try to use the “apostrophe and an s” together (to form a possessive, the system turns the combination into a quotation mark. Very annoying. Only workaround according to Spring is to accept the predictive text given that shows the apostrophe s that you have to select. Since I’m not in the habit of looking at predictive text, but rather at the keyboard, it is very annoying to have to slow down to do that. Please fix it Samsung (or Sprint or Google or whoever is responsible for these software updates!) This is only happening in the email application, not in messages, facebook responses, etc.